A start-up founded by a former Capitec credit executive is building digital records of homes that sit outside South Africa’s title-deed system. It believes banks, insurers and credit bureaus will pay for what it learns about the people who live in them.
DigiDeeds launched its app in March and says it has signed up more than 6 600 members, in areas including Khayelitsha, Soweto and Soshanguve. Members get a free “DigiDeed”, a digital certificate that serves as proof of address and, for owners, records their ownership of the structure they live in and their right to occupy it, though not the land under it.
“We have spent decades asking how we get people into the formal property system. We also need to ask how the formal system can recognise the assets people already have,” said co-founder and CEO Jaco Carstens in an interview with TechCentral on Monday.
Carstens, a chartered accountant, spent 20 years as a credit executive at Capitec, where the bank’s decision-science teams reported to him. “The trick of the trade was to make operations equal to data, so that the two tell the same story,” he said.
The gap DigiDeeds is targeting is vast. Citing the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa’s 2024 yearbook, the company says that only 6.9 million of South Africa’s 17.8 million homes have a title deed. It estimates that more than 35 million people live in homes outside the formal property system: informal and RDP homes, backyard rooms and rural homes on communal land.
For them, proof of address can mean a trip to the ward councillor. In DigiDeeds’ community research, one person described spending R38 on taxis and taking time off work, without knowing whether the councillor would be there.
Free for members
The app verifies three things. A member takes a selfie and photographs their ID or passport; for an ID, the app reads the barcode. They then drop a pin on their home and photograph it, and the location is checked against GPS and geographic information system (GIS) mapping. Finally, seven neighbours confirm the address and whether the person owns the home, rents it or simply lives there.
Asked whether a DigiDeed has legal standing, Carstens pointed to Roman law: “If seven Romans say so, it is so.” DigiDeeds says it has an advocate’s opinion that the approach is consistent with existing law. “We do not offer land and title because, as you know, people don’t own that land,” he said.
The app is free for members. DigiDeeds makes its money from data. It buys GIS data, adds what its members and their neighbours supply, and sells the result to credit bureaus, which Carstens calls the “wholesalers”, and to banks, the “retailers”.
“We buy a bit of GIS [data], we enrich it a lot and we sell it through to service providers,” he said.
Carstens says each member generates 26 data points, from which DigiDeeds has derived 11 “features” for use in credit models, giving more than 200 000 data points so far. Neighbours have provided more than 40 000 confirmations. DigiDeeds says the platform also produces a “stability indicator” scored from 0 to 100.
He says three of the largest banks and three of the main credit bureaus have bought the data to test it. He didn’t name them, citing non-disclosure agreements.
DigiDeeds pitches the records as “alternative data” to help lenders score customers better, and as proof of address for know-your-customer checks under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica).
Carstens claims a DigiDeed can be pledged to a lender as security through cession, giving households collateral they have never had.
Fraud and privacy
A database of IDs, selfies, photographs of homes and GPS co-ordinates for low-income households is an obvious target. Carstens says DigiDeeds’ app and database were built by Stellenbosch software group Octoco and its subsidiary Polymorph on Neo4j, a graph database he says is already helping it identify bad actors. The company has a part-time CIO, and Carstens is registered as information officer under the Protection of Personal Information Act. Members give consent to the use of their data in the app.
“As soon as one becomes the softest target, you will be attacked,” he said.
DigiDeeds works only in established townships, including the informal dwellings in them. “If somebody is staying illegally on land, that’s not where we serve,” Carstens said.
DigiDeeds was incorporated in November 2024. Carstens says it has more than 100 investors. Its co-founder and non-executive director is Charles Robertson, a property developer. Its chairman is Ruben Richards, and its other non-executive directors are Ian Abrahams, a banker who worked with Carstens at Capitec, and Marcus Courage, founder of advisory firm Africa Practice.
Carstens is aiming for 125 000 members within 12 months. It needs 500 000 to comfortably take the company to breakeven. DigiDeeds plans to add services such as solar power, connectivity and security that providers can sell to members with a verified home, and Carstens says it has been invited to expand to other countries, starting next year.
His claims for the economic effect are bolder still. Asked about research on the value that could be unlocked, he said he hadn’t done his own. He nevertheless believes that, if banks and other institutions embrace the model, it could double South Africa’s economic growth rate. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
